I finished reading the final chapter of Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs to you from my living room yesterday evening, and I was kind of sad, and also proud that I managed to create something positive with my shelter-in-home time. I tried a puzzle and gave up. My closet is still a mess.I haven’t baked bread, but maybe today? Some days have been better than others, but for three weeks we have had this. Together. So thank you.
https://www.heatherlende.com/video/take-good-care-of-the-garden-and-the-dogs-final-chapter/
I was inspired to do it by Mary Chapin Carpenter and her home concerts with her dog, Angus, who looks just like my dog Trixie, and interupts her sometimes, like I knew would happen to me (although in these times my house is much more quiet than usual, since no one is coming and going except the dogs…) so, I figured, why not?
Of course, I did not know how to make a video, but luckily I have some smart friends, James and Kip, and they set up this site for them, and shared equipment, safely, dropping off a bag with the camera, tripod and mic in the back of my car like some sort of drug deal, and answered a lot of sometimes frantic calls and emails — “I was uploading it and it quit and I think it’s gone!”
Chip has been watching them, which is kind of funny, since he’s lived the stories, and he always asks who I’m talking to, is there someone in the kitchen, or the living room? And I tell him, yes, it’s you. Thank you again, very much, for keeping me company. In other news…
The next big thing around here is the June release of my fourth book, Of Bears and Ballots about my term on the Haines Borough Assembly, and our local politics and pretty good government in all its glorious chaos. I’m not sure how that will look, what with the virus, if bookstores will be open, but we will figure out a way to make sure you hear me read some of it, and are able to get a copy from your favorite bookseller. That way we both can help them. (And us. What would life be like without a bookstore on Main Street? I can’t even think about that right now.) So in May, I will begin weekly video readings of selections from Find the Good, If You Lived Here I’d Know Your Name, and Of Bears and Ballots, and a few of the chapters from Take Good care of the Garden and the Dogs may be mixed in, too.
Also, if you want to hear me read another whole book, I did record the audiobook of Find the Good, and that is on Audible, as well as available from bookstores in CD form, and at most libraries (and electronic library services for these pandemic times.) And not to be too sappy, but even I smile when I see the cover– ( which I cannot claim any influence on at all. I was surprised when I saw that sunny lemon )– Isn’t it a bittersweet reminder to find the good, today, and tomorrow , too? I mean, what is the alternative?
